Misology and Cultural Accountability
(Disclaimer: This section references The Matrix and contains spoilers.)
If, in the discussion of freedom, one is better apt to describe freedom in terms of creation rather than choice, then on an individual level we can express our freedom in terms of the things we create, rather than the things we consume. The same holds true on a cultural level, as there is no culture without individuals.
Understanding this distinction, however — that is, the realization that true freedom resides in our creative abilities and how we express these abilities within the world — is not be taken lightly. For in knowing and understanding this, one may then be held accountable for refusing to be free.
I’ve taught this argument — not in the detail that I have presented here — to my ethics students over the years, and it is precisely at this point that someone in the class raises their and asks, “Why would someone refuse to be free?” Given the discussion thus far, this question is well founded.
Misology can be described as the hatred of knowledge. It is the willful refusal of knowledge and an unapologetic embracement of ignorance. The idea of misology is so foreign to so many that without a clear example it is just another of the many abstract concepts that philosophers discuss, which have no real application in the world.
This conception of misology, of defiantly embracing ignorance, is best expressed in the movie The Matrix (I’m here speaking of the first movie in the trilogy, which of course was the best in the series). There is a scene where Cypher meets with Agent Smith at a fancy restaurant.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, do you know what I’ve realized? Ignorance is bliss.
Agent Smith: Then we have a deal?
Cypher: I don’t want to remember nothing. Nothing! You understand? And I want to be rich.
Cypher is the embodiment of misology. He is resentful of the knowledge he has acquired over the last nine years. He fully understands that the Matrix isn’t real, that it doesn’t exist, and yet he would choose to live a lie, rather than living the truth.
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